42 DR. BARNARDO: PHYSICIAN, PIONEER, PROPHET
well-kept teeth, sparkling eyes and, above all, their irre-
sistible good nature, you will be less than human if you
fail to catch the contagion of their merriment.
The swimming-pool presents a scene not less captivating
than "the gym", while the drill-room's spectacle of gunnery
and team-work makes the uninitiated gasp with awe. Here
is revealed the Barnardo sailor in embryo. But push on!
This school has a hundred charms. Its chapel is almost as
fine as "Goldings" chapel; its library, containing books
presented by the Queen, is well stocked with tales of sea-
life, travel and adventure; its magazine is one of the finest
in the Barnardo series; its bank and tuck-shop are run in
orderly manner; its "old boys3 room", furnished by old
boys at sea, and the "bed95 maintained by them, suggest
one of the links between present and past students; while
the flattering reports of the school's status by Admiralty
officials prove its high efficiency.
After finishing at Watts, the boys, at fifteen or sixteen,
go to Shotley, the Government Naval School with over 1,000
students, for final training; and the success of Barnardo boys
there is outstanding. In 1923 the Government established
a system of prizes for the best entries, and up to the present
Barnardo boys have won three-quarters of the first prizes,
a large percentage of the second, and, some years, both
first and second. The signed Report of Captain Noble,
"Commanding Officer of the Royal Navy Training Estab-
lishment, Shotley", June I5th, 1926, states that one Bar-
nardo boy, Hardaker by name, won "the highest marks ever
obtained by a Signal Boy in Final Examination",
Remarkable as is Watts Naval Training School, its
wonder is almost duplicated at the Russell-Cotes Nautical
School, a Barnardo branch at Parkstone, Dorset, designed
to train boys for the Mercantile Marine. Here too, bells,
bugles, naval uniforms, nautical drill, martial music, wire-
less and the mysteries of seamanship are ever present. But
most alluring is the school's esprit de corps. The joyous